I tried this setup around two pawpaw trees. I put typical welded wire fencing around the trees, then wrapped electric fence strand around the fencing a few times utilizing plastic standoffs to keep the electric fence from touching the metal. Prior to doing this I had a big raccoon problem with peaches and plums, but they did not get to any of my paws paws in the same area. I used a solar charger. I like that it is portable. I don’t think I’d have any trouble moving this from tree to tree, the only limiting factor being the grounding rods which are semi-permanent. They are not super expensive though so I might just pound a bunch all over my orchard.
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Have you considered running subsurface conduit between trees to reduce solar setups and protect multiple trees?
Very cool! Can you post more details on the products you used?
You just need to have a ground rod at your charger. Not at each tree.
For cattle, horses etc…
You may have a ground rod a mile away from where they make contact. It’s just grounding the system.
It just needs to be grounded to that charger. The live wire can go a long ways depending on your unit.
It looks like the solar charger is right next to the trees; so, you need a ground rod for each group of trees. This looks like a light duty system that powers a fairly short length of live wire.
I have a medium length system that has the charger in my garage and powers four runs of live wires around my grapes. This has been 100% effective against racoons for at least 30 years.
Could you post a picture of your setup? The raccoons and opossums really caused problems with my grapes
Excellent. Can you recommend a website that gives good directions on how to do this? We have a lot of racoons, squirrels and possums. Thanks so much.
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Sorry, I just removed the fence yesterday, since I also picked almost all of my remaining grapes then. The setup is very simple. The generator is in the garage plugged into a timer that turns it on during the night. The live wire runs on insulators from the generator through a slightly open window to the back of the house where the grapes are growing. From there the wire is run on short wooden posts about 2.5 ft long hammered into the ground. The wire is looped around roofing nails hammered into the posts. The bottom wire is about 3 or 4 inches off the ground and is run around the whole width of the house from the SW corner to the SE corner where it turns around and runs back on the next level of nails about 4-5" higher. There are 2 more 4-5" levels, and the wire terminates back at the SW corner. This provides wires at 4 levels, but I’m sure that 3 would be enough since racoons don’t jump. I just had lots of free wire to use up. Note that the wire spacing was eyeballed; nothing was measured.
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In about 30 years of growing paw paws the only fruit that has been eaten by my plentiful coon and possum population is what falls on the ground and splits. In my neck of the woods sky and land pests do not ever bother my paw paws, leaves or fruit- insect, mammal, fungus, bacteria or bird all go elsewhere for their nourishment. There is a bitter poison in the leaves and the skin of the fruit concentrated enough to stop most pests here.
Also, I’ve almost never protected anything against anything that hadn’t already done damage…I don’t do pre-emptive defense when I don’t know if it is likely needed.
However the behavior of pests can vary a great deal from region to region and even from nearby site to site. For 35 years the plentiful deer who work my property never got up on their hind legs to harvest fruit… this year a doe who had learned this trick took more than half of my apple crop and my best mid-Sept peaches. I mean, hundreds of pounds of fruit, all in all.
I miss giving so much of my surplus away, but at least it saves me some work. Hopefully hunting season will end it for this fruitarian.
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We have tens of miles of High-Tensile electric fence here on the farm.
Kencove Farm Fence Supplies and Premier1Supplies were our go-to sources for everything other than insulators and the 4000-ft rolls of 12.5 ga. HT wire.
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The charger is a Gallagher S60 .6 joule solar charger. At least .5 joules are recommended for raccoons, and it’s hard to find a solar charger that gets that high. The Purple Plastic posts are just electric fence posts I got from Tractor Supply. I think they were 1.50 each. They are a little flimsy but have a stepping tab and a metal post on the bottom so they go in and out of the ground pretty easy.
I’ve got about 50+ various fruit trees total. With spring frosts, I probably get 8-10 trees a year with decent fruit set and they are always something different, usually only 1 thing ripening at a time. So this set up will probably suffice, I’ll just move it around. I could connect the grounding rods from a distance to the charger with a long strand of elevated wire. In-ground conduit would probably be better, but the chances of me getting to that soon are pretty slim. Next year I’m going to try putting tighter mesh hardware cloth at the bottom hoping it will also deter squirrels. With an outer ring of electric fence wire close enough to the ground for squirrels, however, I’ll probably have to grade some dirt to keep the clearance distance consistent. I’ll also have to really keep up on the weeds. I didn’t ground the metal fence this year, but I might next year. Any animal trying to get through will probaby end up touching both the outer electric fence strand and the inner metal fence. Should zap them good. I hit it once by accident and it had some kick.
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I have approximately 20 acres fenced using an electric charger. It is probably more cost effective to fence the entire orchard if possible. You should only need 1 ground rod depending on soil moisture. Most chargers say you need 3 if your soil is extremely dry. I have found aluminum wire is best. We fence to keep out range cattle. T posts and standoffs work well. You can string several wires. Hot , ground, hot, ground, hot. Space about 6 inches a part. Most critters will get an extreme jolt when hitting a gound and hot. Poly tape decreases the shock. So does high weeds.
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I may go that route, but fast weed growth and very uneven ground made it more difficult to keep a low clearance so nothing gets under it. I’m not totally opposed to using herbicide under the fence wire for weed control, but I’m always paranoid about drift affecting my plants, especially grapes. I had some accidental herbicide exposure (my fault) on my grapes in 2024 and this was a recovery year. Many struggled, a few died.
What i do aound my fruits and veggies for weed control is use high strength vinegar. I usually get the 45%. I mix it with dish soap and if along a fence line away from the desirables, salt. Depending on the weed, i mix it either 30 % - 50% vinegar to water. Apply when temps are above 70 and sunny with no rain forecast. Burn off happens usually within a day. Some weeds it kills totally, others will come back. On the tough ones it acts as a suppressant.
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